A new Op-Ed by Martin Lindstrom in the NY Times reveals a few amazing facts about smoking. Among them are:

1. Approximately 5.7 Trillion cigarettes are smoked each year world-wide.
2. Currently there are 1.3 billion smokers in world. By 2025 there will be 1.6 billion
3. Health warnings on cigarette packages (including the graphic pictures of lung disease and other nasty shit on cigarette packaging in some European countries) aren't just ineffective in turning people off from cigarettes, they actually make people want to smoke more.

"Surely," you say, "this last point is crazy - someone has misinterpreted some data." Apparently not. Apparently they do these fancy tests with diodes and brain-scanning equipment, and they have proven that when people are shown signs on cigarette packs warning that the product causes cancer and depicting a tracheotomy victim with a black lung growing out his ear, it actually makes them want the cigarettes more.

Lindstrom argues that upping the ante on cigarette warnings actually promotes smoking. How can this be? Do the majority of people harbor a death wish that these warnings bring out? It seems unbelievable at the level of the individual, but when you step back and look at the broader society, this seems to be exactly what we're doing: We build an industrial/ economic system that destroys the environment despite years of evidence that we're irrevocably killing our own ecosystem. Then when that system fails, instead of changing it fundamentally, we bail it out. But hey, we did elect Barack instead of McCain - that's a start.

What would it mean to the environment and economic system if we got rid of smoking altogether? What are the carbon emissions from 5.7 trillion cigarettes? What if 1.3 billion people were suddenly not prone to the health risks of smoking - would that have an impact on global medical operations? If we all cast aside our collective death wish and quit smoking, would we allow all that revenue (I'm guessing $500 billion annually on a global average of 10 cents a cig) to simply disappear, or would we feel compelled to bail out the smoking industry, too? Maybe they could tie it into the auto industry bailout: a free carton of smokes included with purchase of every new Dodge heavy-duty pickup truck. Who says American manufacturing is dead? -AM

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By Gavin McInnes

When racists -- real racists -- go off on a tirade, it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. They're just so shameless and oblivious, you find yourself thinking, Can this guy hear himself?

And when environmentalists go on about Al Gore and "going green," and how there are "way too many cars out there" and there are "too many of us" I find myself cringing and praying there are no Mexicans in the room. I mean surely these bourgeois hippies know it's primarily Mexicans who are behind the population surge in the U.S.

They know you can not have too many cars without too many people but they won't say, "Stop breeding you fucking wetbacks!" so they just get mad at the cars. When the Greeners take it to a global community level, the ethnic bashing gets even worse.

"We should supply contraceptives to all those people in the developing world," says Norman Myers of the World Wildlife Fund. "Population growth is directly involved in the pollution and degradation of our environment," adds Sierra Club head Carl Pope. "Well, excu-u-u-u-u-u-se me for living," replies the Third World...

Environmentalists pretend they only hate gas-guzzling SUVs and other rich, American white-people cars, but these only account for a tiny fraction of the cars out there. The mathematical truth is impossible to deny: To say there is too many cars in America is the same as saying, "There's too many Mexicans in America." And to say there's too many cars in the world is to say there is too many non-whites in the world. Sounds like most tree huggers would like to sink Africa, Asia and South America into the sea.

They kind of already tried. After reading a poorly researched book called Silent Spring that said the bug spray DDT kills birds (it doesn't), environmentalists decided the chemical must be eradicated. Eventually, this ban became a worldwide phenomenon, and the Third World was prevented from using the greatest mosquito killer ever made. This lead to millions of deaths.

The tiny South African province of KwaZulu Natal, for example, saw about fifty deaths per year before the DDT ban -- a number that shot up to almost five hundred the following year. The director general of health services for Uganda called the DDT ban "contemporary colonialism" after watching fifty thousand Ugandan children die of malaria in 2005. It is an epidemic that has spread across the entire continent, and the dead have the Green movement to thank.

Environmentalists were called out for this a few years ago, but instead of letting the relatively harmless DDT go free and save African lives, they came up with a new plan: nets. That's right, nets. "Nothing But Nets" is an organization whose ironic mantra, "Send a net. Save a life," seems to laugh in the face of the numbers -- their Band-Aid solution can't even come close to saving the lives DDT would.

Environmentalists enjoy killing Africans with a lot more than bugs. They also enjoy murdering them with that weird prank where you leave a paper bag of burning excrement in front of someone's house and anonymously ring the doorbell. The British Department of International Development is pushing a program called "Development by Dung" wherein Africans are encouraged to "not follow the same failed patterns of energy use" and use manure instead of diesel to power their communities. With all due respect to dung, it sucks shit. Lung damage is now second only to diarrhea as a child killer in Africa and it comes from inhaling pooh.

Aseshi University's Kofi Bentil has begged the First World elites to take it easy on all this emission fascism and let the African countries use real fuel. "Please, Europe and America, spare us!" he recently pleaded. "You can cut your own emissions if you want, but don't tell us what to do. We really have much more serious and urgent threats to deal with." All Africa wants is the luxury to use a coal-fired power plant to give them one fucking light bulb and, possibly, a microwave in their homes. Start them with that and they could get healthy, then educated, then organized, then wealthy, then independent, and then maybe worry about solar panels and organic soy. "Nope," say the environmentalists, "Stick to shit."

Hardcore environmentalists don't even want Africans to eat. In 1970 Norman Borlog won the Nobel Peace Prize for inventing genetically engineered food. He has lived in the Third World for decades and his work has saved an estimated one billion lives. However, white upper-middle-class-American health nuts in organic cotton pants call his corn "Frankenfood" and insist we all go back to chemical-free farming. All of us. Even Africa. Borlog did the math and tried to explain to the greenies:

A) Genetically engineered food is not bad for you.

B) We do not inject animal genes into corn. We look at, say, fish genes, and try to figure out how they work -- but you can't make Fishcorn. Stop calling it Frankenfood. Especially when you are talking to Third World politicians who want to make you happy.

C) Organic farming sounds great if you live on Venice Beach and only eat raw food (what a luxury!) but even if your "all organic" plan could be executed, it would only feed four billion of us. That's 2.6 billion short of the world population.

The environmentalist responded, "Fuck you, Borlog." Subsequently, in October of 2002, Zambia had a huge donation of genetically modified food slapped out of their hands when the president was told it was poison. The country responded by starving. Hippies must have danced with glee when they saw the numbers of bodies pile up to the sky. But hey, this was only the beginning -- Latin America has a good forty million poor people that could do with some suffering!

Not only does the enviro-dogma of "Stop using so much stuff" equal "Enough with the immigrant babies in America," but environmentalists' love of bio-fuels says, "Fuck the Mexicans in Mexico, too." By pushing everyone from gas to ethanol, they have jacked up the price of corn so high Mexicans can't afford their own tortillas.

In 2005, a kilo of tortillas in Mexico cost sixty-three cents a pound. Today, thanks to the demand for corn now doubling as fuel, the price is over two dollars. Try telling a poor person their grocery bills are going to triple overnight. Sucks right? Look, they're crying! For the first time in Latin American history, Ramen noodles are overtaking tortillas as the region’s most popular food. (This sounds like a joke, but I am serious).

Ethanol is a great way for actors in California to feel better about driving their cars, but it makes poor people starve and it increases global warming and it destroys forests and it inflates food prices globally. Only an elitist racist would tell the Third World the best way to power an engine is to burn food. Even in America this new demand has raised the price of everything --fifty per cent in some cases. Livestock eat corn, and it all trickles down from there.

When customers at Whole Foods on 14th St. in Manhattan were confronted with this huge hike in food costs, most responded with, "I can take it." These are the same people, by the way, who insist on banning trans fats and have forced the Third World to switch from supplying them partially hydrogenated vegetable oil to the much less cholesterol-y palm oil. This meant dedicating the rain forests in places like Borneo to trans fat-free farms that displace all the aboriginals there, as well as the wild orangutans, and the Sumatran rhinoceroses, and the pygmy elephants. It's a move that the World Bank recently described as "a species extinction spasm of planetary proportions." You would think these hippies would be satisfied with fucking all blacks and browns in the ass. But that still leaves a billion Asians who are just asking for it!

Though Bush is blamed for leaving China out of the Kyoto treaty, the truth is Gore and Clinton just sat on it until their term was up and it was George's problem. This still hasn't prevented environmentalists from taking out a few million Asians. Chinese people love pork more than Mexicans love tortillas. Shit, they love it more than starving Africans love eating genetically engineered food. Unfortunately, ethanol fanaticism has jacked the world price of corn so high that not even pigs can eat. That means in 2007 the price for live pigs went up a whopping seventy-one per cent. And that means poor Chinese starve.

All of Asia is feeling this pinch. Even Indonesians, who are way too Muslim to give a shit about pork, had a riot in Jakarta back in January because bio-diesel had jacked the prices of soybeans through the roof and nobody could afford to eat shit. (Actually, that's the one thing they could afford to eat but Africa had used it all to heat their mud huts).

So environmentalists want Africans to starve, they want Mexicans to stop breeding, and they want all of Asia to do both.

Now, it's possible that Al Gore's fans are just naive kids with their hearts in the right place. But I don't know, I planted about 150,000 trees from 1990 to 1995 and the only people I remember in the forest working sixty hours a week were African exchange students, Native Americans, working class locals, and a few broke students who never talked about the environment once. Once again, the ones screaming, "Keep it real" the loudest are the ones the most full of shit (metaphorically of course -- the ones literally the most full of shit here would be the Africans, unfortunately).

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Universally loved Canadian band Arcade Fire will be releasing a documentary called Miroir Noir on Monday, December 15th. The doc covers the Neon Bible period, and it includes both studio and tour footage as well as a "few short films made on the road."

The footage was shot by the indie director Vincent Moon, who everybody is constantly gushing about, but was directed by Vincent Morriset who created the crazy video for the song "Neon Bibe" and also designed the band's web page.

The digital download will be available Monday at www.Miroir-Noir.com, but the DVD versions (deluxe and standard) will appear on shelves in early 2009. Watch the trailer below.

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In case you missed it, the soon-to-appear-in Death+Taxes School Of Seven Bells was just on Morning Becomes Eclectic. This episode should give you hope if you've been fretting over the show, wondering, Is there life after Harcourt? Apparently, yes, there is.

You can listen to the showhere.

School Of Seven Bells also plays Mercury lounge Monday 12/15.
-AM

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That's right - get out the rug thing with the fringe you used to wear in high school, pack up the peyote, and head over to Don Pedro's in Bushwick if you want to check out Golden Animals tonight. We're not exactly sure what happened to these dudes in the year and a half since they packed up from NYC to head west for California, but we think we like it. The way we see it, if you're gonna do the SoCal hippie thing, might as well take it all the way. Lizard King, here we come. -AM

Don Pedro's
90 Manhattan Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11206
(718) 218-6914

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The 2008 compilation is now out. Not only is it filled with writing mostly from Death+Taxes magazine, but they also seem to have given us a brand new categorical award for "Best Magazine of All Time, Ever - Seriously." Ok none of that is true. But it is a great volume with a lot of the really dynamite writing to appear over the last year, including Christopher Hitchens's more incendiary Vanity Fair columns and Jeanne Marie Laskas's profile on coal miners from GQ. If your brain is frying from toggling back and forth between stock market numbers and blogs like this one, go out and get your hands on some top-notch journalism. -AM

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If you haven't yet -- go pick up a copy of the new D+T with of Montreal on the cover. We've got a really nice profile on Little Joy in there. They've got three dates left on their North American tour before heading off to Europe. Find them and party. 12/11 El Corazon, Seattle. 12/12 The Plaza Club, Vancouver, B.C., 12/13 Berbati's Pan, Portland. -IL

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Anti- recording artist and free-spirited reggae songwriter, Michael Franti, has released a free track called "Obama Song." It's about our president-elect. My jaw dropped when I heard the chorus. Also, the progression sounds a helluva lot like "La Bamba," though I don't think Ritchie Valens would pull a Joe Satriani on Franti if he were with us today, god rest his soul

The track is available at the link below, and contains some extraordinarily uplifting lyrics. The inspiration for the track seems to have been Obama's still-unproven ability to unite the world. Unfortunately, any world uniting is going to have to wait until his Senate seat scandal simmers down.-SB

"Obama Song"

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All Tomorrow's Parties, the anti-corporate rock festival founded in 1999, has announced some its acts for 2009. The fest will take place from September 11 - 13 in Monticello, NY at Kutsher's Country Club, which features 18 holes of championship golf.

The exciting news is Sunday's curator, The Flaming Lips. Though the Lips haven't announced any accompanying artists, we're sure they're usual antics will be on display in all their glory, including the walking ball and maybe, if we're lucky, a Black Sabbath cover.

Also performing at the festival will be Animal Collective, Atlas Sound, Black Dice, and Suicide. The comedy portion will be hosted by David Cross who, for whatever reason, is not yet universally maligned. Didn't you guys see the Chipmunk movie?

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Over the past two years, Barack Obama has endured numerous high-profile attacks on his character, origins and political doctrine. He's been called a marxist-socialist, a terrorist, a Muslim, a turncoat, and a vain pop star. Some Internet forums have even accused him of being a bad dancer. But very recently he was accused of not being an American citizen at all, though the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Leo Donofrio, a New Jersey-native who is clearly disgusted by the election of Obama, tried to make the case that Obama was not a U.S. citizen at all, echoing a sentiment brought forth earlier this year by a lawyer (probably working on Republican "think tank" dime) who was trying to prove that Obama was born in Kenya, or at least raise the specter of this notion. For what it's worth, Donofrio can't be criticized as an outright racist -- he tried to argue that McCain wasn't a natural citizen either because, military brat that he is, he was born in 1936(!) in the Panama Canal region.

To quell the nation's fears, it has been made clear to the country that Barack Obama is indeed a naturalized U.S. citizen according to the framework of the Constitution. He was born in Hawaii in 1961. Hawaii became a military base state of the union in 1959. Had he been born two years earlier, there wouldn't have been any change for anyone to believe in, though he'd probably be making some serious dough right now as a corporate lawyer, instead of taking on theNation's Worst Job. -SB

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So you wanted to get one of those limited edition Shepard Fairey Obama screen prints, but didn't have like $10K sitting around? MoveOn.org is now giving out these rad Fairey-designed stickers for FREE. They're even paying for the postage to send it to you - not sure why, exactly but it's awful sweet of them. Go here to get your sticker: http://pol.moveon.org/shepstickers/

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Ok first off, for starters, I am white - craaaazy white. Not only did I not grow up knowing the black experience that shaped hip-hop, but I'm not even the world's most avid hip-hop listener. Still, there's a question I've been thinking about over the last few weeks: What does a Barack Obama Presidency mean to hip hop?

Being one of those white guys who thinks, "Ooh, does asking that question sound racist?" I haven't really talked to anyone about it. But I've just noticed there's a new book that came out last week that I'm hoping gets into it with some of the authority I clearly don't have: The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop - And Why It Matters, by Tricia Rose. I may not be a hip-hop expert, but I know this much...

I know it started as a voice of resistance to the disenfranchisement and ghettoization of the black community. And damn right - the disenfranchisement was real, massive, and crazy effective. Which is why any civilized person with an interest in equal opportunity wants to cheer Jay-Z's story, even if it's built on slinging rock. There's something to the logic that says, When society does not give you a fair shot, you are within your right to do whatever you can to achieve, even if it means breaking the laws of that society. Almost especially if it means breaking the laws of that society. Hell, in that context it almost sounds like the American dream.

The question I have is, now that all-white American leadership is over and the idea of equal opportunity has taken a giant leap forward, should hip-hop change as well? In a world where everyone of every race, sex or background truly is given equal opportunity, Jay-Z songs start to look more like they're about just regular old drug dealing, which, you know, isn't quite as cool.

Of course Barack's presidency does not just wipe clean all the real-life problems of black Americans like income disparity, educational opportunities, etc, just like the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 didn't just turn us into a colorblind utopian society overnight. Fair enough. But now that we've gone on the record as a country in saying that anyone is allowed to achieve anything here, is it enough for hip-hop's primary voice to be that of the hustler? Represented by guys like Lil Wayne, whose philosophy is pretty well summed up by his lyric, "Get money, fuck bitches"? Will artists like Murs and Immortal Technique become the big shots of the future, building on a more affirming message? Will hip-hop fundamentally change? Should it change? I'm not saying that the answer is yes, or even that I'm qualified to know. But I think the question is worth asking. -AM

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SNL's Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island Crew are planning the release of their first album. Saturday Night Live, as you're probably aware has been revitalized thanks in no small part to Samberg's hilarious digital shorts. More often than not, the shorts have been music videos featuring notable guest appearances from Maroon 5's Adam Levine, Justin Timberlake and Natalie Portman. Those songs and the latest "Jizz In My Pants" (see video attached) will appear on the album -- as will new songs featuring The Strokes' Julian Casablancas, Norah Jones, Jack Black, and others. Look for it in stores Feb. 10th.

PS. This video is NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but then again, your boss probably won't understand the vernacular. -IL

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Like most huge American bands, Pearl Jam released classic records during the earlier portion of their career, then went on to put out mostly crap. I interviewed Billy Corgan in 2005, and he sharply measured the fall of his nineties colleagues: "Kurt killed himself, Courtney couldn't keep it together, Trent started putting out records every five years, and Pearl Jam -- Pearl Jam got artsy for no reason." Hey, when you're right, you're right.

I suspect Pearl Jam know that people think this about them. They were too big from the success of Ten. The band even requested that "Black" not be released as a single after the humongous success of "Even Flow," "Alive" and "Jeremy" off of their debut album, Ten. (There's no proper video, but it found its way onto radio anyhow.)

Eighteen years later, things have simmered down for Pearl Jam -- Eddie Vedder can walk around outside without being bothered by teenagers. To commemorate their upcoming twentieth anniversary, the band is re-releasing and repackaging Ten, and they have a lot of fun stuff lined up...
Here are the four deluxe packages that will accompany the re-issue. White me in their thirties everywhere are going to go apeshit. - SB

THE FOUR EDITIONS OF TEN: ALBUM EXTRAS PER PACKAGE

1. Legacy Edition (2-disc set in mini-LP style slipcase):
· Disc 1: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered (original mix)
· Disc 2: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered and remixed by Brendan O’Brien, plus six bonus tracks: “Brother,” “Just a Girl,” “State of Love and Trust,” “Breath and a Scream,” “2,000 Mile Blues” and “Evil Little Goat”
· Re-designed packaging

2. Deluxe Edition (2-disc set plus DVD specially designed hardbound package):
· Disc 1: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered (original mix)
· Disc 2: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered and remixed by Brendan O’Brien, plus six bonus tracks: “Brother,” “Just a Girl,” “State of Love and Trust,” “Breath and a Scream,” “2,000 Mile Blues” and “Evil Little Goat”
· DVD of Pearl Jam’s previously unreleased 1992 MTV Unplugged performance including never before seen bonus performance of “Oceans” with 5.1 surround sound audio remix

3. Vinyl Collection (2-LP set)
· LP 1: original Ten tracklisting remastered for vinyl
· LP 2: original Ten tracklisting remastered for vinyl and remixed by Brendan O’Brien

4. Super Deluxe Edition (2-disc set plus DVD, 4 LPs and replica cassette in linen-covered, slip-cased clamshell box):
· Disc 1: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered (original mix)
· Disc 2: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered and remixed by Brendan O’Brien, plus six bonus tracks: “Brother,” “Just a Girl,” “State of Love and Trust,” “Breath and a Scream,” “2,000 Mile Blues” and “Evil Little Goat”
· DVD of Pearl Jam’s previously unreleased 1992 MTV Unplugged performance including never before seen bonus performance of “Oceans” with 5.1 surround sound audio remix
· LP 1: original Ten tracklisting remastered for vinyl
· LP 2: original Ten tracklisting remastered for vinyl and remixed by Brendan O’Brien
· LP 3 & 4: Drop in the Park – Live at Magnuson Park in Seattle on September 20, 1992 (audio mixed by Brendan O’Brien)
· Cassette: replica of original “Momma-Son” Pearl Jam demo cassette featuring “Alive,” “Once” and “Footsteps”
· Package also includes an Eddie Vedder-style composition notebook filled with replica personal notes, images and mementos from the collections of Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament, a vellum envelope with replicated era-specific ephemera from Pearl Jam’s early work and a two-sided print commemorating the Drop in the Park concert.

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Live From Bonnaroo 2008, a DVD featuring footage of the performances from last year's festival, will be available in January for twenty bucks. Bonnaroo, which started out as a hippie-dippie jam fest in 2002, has grown into the one the nation's largest festivals and certainly the most diverse, as you can tell by the track listing below.

Bonnaroo has not announced its 2009 line-up just yet, but we'll be sure to hit you up with the details when they do. Topping Metallica and Pearl Jam has got to be a pain in the ass, though. I wonder what those dudes talked about backstage? -SB

"Live From Bonnaroo 2008 Track List"
The Raconteurs "Old Enough"
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings "Let Them Knock"
Broken Social Scene "Love is New"
Gogol Bordello "Think Locally Fuck Globally"
Chali 2na featuring Galactic "Lock Shit/Right Now"
Metallica "Fade to Black"
The Lee Boys "Come On, Help Me Lift Him Up"
Tegan and Sara "Back In Your Head"
Against Me! "We Laugh at Danger (And Break All the Rules)
The Avett Brothers "Die Die Die"
Jack Johnson "If I Had Eyes"
Les Claypool "One Better"
Mastodon "Colony of Birchmen"
Two Gallants "Despite What You've Been Told"
My Morning Jacket "I'm Amazed"
Pearl Jam "Better Man"


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Solo artist, producer and Wu-Tang Clan Chief Architect Rza has a lot going on. He'll be releasing Afro Samurai: The Resurrection next month, which is the soundtrack to Spike Lee's popular animated series of the same name.

Rza will also be making in appearance in the next Judd Apatow film! It was only a matter of time. Word is he'll be appearing in a scene alongside Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen in Funny People, which aims to be the 2009 Apatow and Co. summer smash. Let's hope it's as memorable as his scene with Gza and Bill Murray in Jarmusch's Coffee & Cigarettes, though that's going to be tough to top.


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I can't recall the first time I heard about clean coal -- was it Fox News? Probably. After all, just the other night I heard Brit Hume pose the question, "If global warming is real, then why are the oceans getting cooler?" Brit Hume should be fired.

Anyway, "clean coal" is a hell of a term. It's like jumbo shrimp. Shrimp are small; coal is filthy. As a matter of fact, it's one of the most impure substances you can find in the ground that's actually worth burning. We know coal releases loads of carbon dioxide as it is burned to ash while powering global power grids, but it also contains the radioactive metals uranium and thorium, making it the number-one emitter of radioactive elements into the atmosphere. Un-contained radioactivity and carbon emissions are something we're all supposed to be fighting against for the survival of humanity and so on, so why is coal the dominant source of power (over fifty percent) to our electrical grid? And will it stay that way?

Sarah Palin and John McCain openly supported clean coal (and still lost Pennsylvania!) whereas the incoming administration seems to a) not know whether it should be supported or b) has no idea what it is. Most Americans don't, especially since clean coal technology, defined as the effort to minimize the effect of the harmful pollutants released into the atmosphere, most specifically the containment of carbon dioxide emissions, is not exercised and is a sham to begin with. Politicians should have the right to use clean coal as bargaining chip as much they should fairy dust, and it's a great thing that ThisIsReality.Org are spreading the message. Below is a great ad for the cause.
- Stephen Blackwell

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...by Donald Trump!! ...Oh wait, that's not The Don. Who is that coiffed marauder? Aqua-Net Man? No! It's none other than Illinois' own Governor Rod R. Blagojevich, the man charged with unilateral responsibility for filling the Senate seat left open by Barack Obama. Blago of course wasted no time in selling said seat to the highest bidder. What was Blagojevich thinking? Is that hair helmet squeezing his brain? Asked about whether the possibility that a wire-tap had maaaaybe uncovered some foul play, he replied, "In public or private, the things that I say are lawful. The things I'm interested in doing are lawful." Righto. Stay classy, Blagojevich.

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They're back. Or at least, they will be next summer when they play Hyde Park on July 3rd. All original members have signed up -- Graham Coxon will be back on guitar and singer Damon Albarn will appear in the flesh, not as a cartoon gorilla. No news as to whether or not they'll be making another record -- hopefully they will. Think Tank, they're last album, left a lot to be desired.

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In December of 2007, Rivers Cuomo released Alone, his first record of solo material. It wasn't the polished solo debut full of acoustic pop gems that fans of Weezer had anticipated. Rather, Alone was a collection of lo-fi home recordings. The songs were all unknown and previously unreleased, save an early demo of the hit "Buddy Holly" off of Weezer's eponymous debut. The songs were clearly not recorded for public consumption, and the public seemed to think that it ought to have stayed that way.

One year later Cuomo is back with Alone II, a collection of unpolished material initially unintended for release. But does Alone II beat its predecessor? Or did Cuomo just set the bar so low last time that we knew what to expect?

THE GOOD:
After the grating horn introduction, you might think there's nothing good coming, but you'd be wrong. Track two, "I Want to Take you Home Tonight," is a pretty, melancholic number that could have been a b-side to a Pinkerton single. (The solo is pretty Slash -- very "November Rain.") The following track, "The Purification of Water" (he must have written the title in the emo days) is Cuomo's shot at Disintegration-era Cure, while "My Brain Is Working Overtime" is an ode to early-sixties Beatle tunes, which he follows up later with a pretty, albeit unimaginative, cover of Brian Wilson's "Don't Worry Baby." The penultimate track, "Cold and Damp" deserves the Weezer treatment, while the closer, "I'll Think About You," bounces around like a Lite FM track
-- it's a strong candidate for anotherMuppet video.

THE BAD:
Cuomo is a lamentable guy. He laments to nauseating tedium, even on the good songs. The bad songs are unlistenable, even when you "give them a shot." Before importing to iTunes, there's a solid ten tracks you can scoop off here, and the album will be better for it. You shouldn't be expecting much in way of production, but it's not all bad. After all, the whole thing could have sounded like "Come to My Pod."

What Alone II does is pull back the veil that cloaks a popular artist's ups and downs while trying to write hit pop records. And not in the Metallica way either -- the four-track demo they released of "One" on that song's single is light years ahead of any of this. Rather, we hear Rivers fooling around with chord progressions and melodies, not quite hitting notes, and not performing with the brio we've come to know, sometimes love, and usually respect. Whether this a good thing is up to you.

THE BOTTOM LINE:From shiny pop experimentation to cacophonous whining, Alone II will complete the adoring Weezer fan's collection, and not do a whole lot for anyone else.

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Did it already feel like Santogold was everywhere in 2008? The glossy magazine covers, the advertisements, coworkers listening the "Creator/L.E.S. Artistes" single (which was really quite good) on a loop. We're almost nostalgic for the time when all she did was play FADER parties.

Santo is a bona fide burgeoning pop star. A Yeezy track was inevitable. A Jeezy track was inevitable. But a Kanye-produced Jay-Z track featuring Santo -- we think our heads are going to explode.

The track is called called "Brooklyn Go Hard" because Jay-Z absolutely, unequivocally needs to have another song out there about Brooklyn. The track will be released on The Notorious Soundtrack on January 13th. We haven't heard it, but we imagine the production scenario went somewhat like this:




Jay-Z: Yo Santo, do the thing where you imitate a five year old.
Santogold: You mean when I sing?
Kanye: Yeah baby, do you.

How big will Santo get in 2009? It's anyone's guess. It's not like she's touring with Coldplay or anything. Oh, wait a minute -- Coldplay / Santogold tour dates are listed below.

COLDPLAY / SANTOGOLD TOUR DATES
February
Wed 11 Tokyo,Japan Saitama Super Arena
Thurs 12 Tokyo, Japan Saitama Super Arena
Sat 14 Osaka,Japan Kobe World Kinen Hall
Sun 15 Osaka, Japan Kobe World Kinen Hall

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Psychedelic, gold-toothed rock band The Black Lips have a new record coming out, titled 200 Million Thousand. The record will be released on February 24th, 2009 on Vice Music. The band will be touring North America on a MySpace Music Tour beginning March 4th, 2009.

The Atlanta-based Black Lips formed in 2000, and released their biggest-selling and critically-acclaimed record, Good Bad Not Evil, in 2007. They've been widely considered the kings of sing-along garage rock since, and they're not to be missed live, so make sure you check out their tour dates after the jump.

Tour Dates:
2/26/09 BIRMINGHAM, AL BOTTLE TREE
2/27/09 ATLANTA, GA VARIETY PLAYHOUSE

MySpace Music Presents Tour:
3/04/09 CARRBORO, NC CAT'S CRADLE
3/05/09 WASHINGTON, DC BLACK CAT
3/06/09 PHILADELPHIA, PA JOHNNY BRENDA'S
3/07/09 CAMBRIDGE, MA MIDDLE EAST
3/09/09 NEW YORK, NY BOWERY BALLROOM
3/10/09 BROOKLYN, NY MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG
3/12/09 CLEVELAND, OH BEACHLAND BALLROOM
3/13/09 DETROIT, MI MAGIC STICK
3/14/09 CHICAGO, IL LOGAN SQUARE AUDITORIUM
3/15/09 MILWAUKEE, WI TURNER HALL BALLROOM
3/16/09 ST. PAUL, MN TURF CLUB
3/17/09 OMAHA, NE WAITING ROOM
3/18/09 LAWRENCE, KS BOTTLENECK
3/20/09 AUSTIN, TX SXSW
3/21/09 AUSTIN, TX SXSW
3/23/09 NEW ORLEANS, LA ONE EYED JACKS
3/25/09 TALLAHASSEE, FL CLUB DOWNUNDER
3/26/09 TAMPA, FL ORPHEUM
3/27/09 MIAMI, FL CHURCHILL'S
3/28/09 GAINESVILLE, FL COMMON GROUNDS
3/29/08 JACKSONVILLE, FL JACK RABBITS
3/30/08 ORLANDO, FL THE SOCIAL

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